via Tangible Affect (DIS ‘24) and A Fair Game? (TEI ‘24)
The strongest candidate for my main theory, and the only one that appears in two separate papers for two separate purposes.
What it says — as description
People describe feelings with the body: feeling blue, hot-headed, hopping mad. These are not decoration. They come from real bodily experience, and which ones are available to you depends on your culture. Abstract states are reached through physical ones.
What it says — as method
A Fair Game? runs it in the other direction, and this is the part I can actually use:
- Decide what you want the audience to feel.
- Work backwards to the bodily action that produces that feeling.
- Choose an interaction form that already carries cultural memory — pulling a rope, riding a horse, showing a passport.
Does it hold for my work
It is the theoretical floor under the controller as a cultural symbol. A gamepad is not a neutral input device; it arrives carrying press, aim, move, compete, win. That is a bodily metaphor with a cultural history, which is exactly what this concept licenses me to claim.
Unresolved under v4
Every example here is one body and one object. If v4 is about meaning built between strangers, embodied metaphor explains each person’s entry into the room but not what happens between them. That is where shared involvement would have to take over — and I do not yet know how to join the two.